Month: May 2017

Thanks so much to Henry Locke for doing a presentation on 3D printing and the SLA printer that he built. (See brief video excerpt) It’s always a great treat when Henry stops by the MakerLab and we get to hear the vast knowledge and experiences of someone who has been a maker since well before the label was coined. He has built many machines found in our MakerLab in his home workshop! He’s created a business making and selling the resin vats for commercial brands of SLA printers, and counts research facilities, universities, dental labs, and tinkerers as clients who choose to replace their OEM vats with his designs. You can find out more info about SLA printers and other projects like GPS-controlled robots at his website at http://projectsinterestsandetcetera.com/ .

SLA printers use light to cure a vat of resin layer-by-layer until the 3D object is formed. Henry’s version uses a standard video projector as the light source, a Z-axis and stepper motor attached to about $30 of electronics to allow movement, and open source software to make the slices and control the process. The leading SLA printer brands, FormLabs and Carbon3D , are more expensive than the typical PLA filament printers that most makers have, Henry’s version can be made in a weekend for a couple hundred dollars.

We’ll be building one of Henry’s machines at SouthWorks later in the summer, and all are invited to participate.

Through another maker, I just found out about this amazing museum on the South Side. Its Made in Chicago collection is on display starting this month through April, 2018. The website by itself is a great compilation of all the things invented and/or made in Chicagoland and makes for great reading. Look up Scwhinn and Radio Flyer or even Rock-Ola juke boxes and Zenith Radios and, of course, Motorola.

If you believe it would be helpful to gain experience presenting to groups of customers and/or investors, the Purdue NW (Hammond) Commercialization and Manufacturing Excellence Center participates in the Kauffmann Foundation’s 1 Million Cups program.

Jimmie Beacham is in charge of a futuristic laboratory in Waukesha, Wisconsin. His team of a dozen engineers is helping 70 GE Healthcare factories sprinkled around world explore 3D printing, augmented reality, robotics, big data and other software and technologies. One group, for example, is looking for ways to quickly and efficiently translate image files of organs from computed tomography (CT) scanners and other imaging machines so they can be printed. “Today, when people print organs, it can take anywhere from a week to three weeks to manipulate the data,” Beacham says. “We want to do it with a click of a button.” Read more.

Here at SouthWorks, we’ve actually done this with some free software named Invesalius. Using CT scans, we printed out a complete head. We cut it open, and you can see the ear canals, tonsils, nasal passages, and more. If we cut it in a different place, we could see even more internal details. The 3D version provides a much better way to view and assess the body than going through 2D slices one-by-one. And it’s free!

We don’t have a lathe yet, but we’ve found a great resource for those of you who are interested in learning about and using lathes.

We were visited by a member of the Illiana Woodturners, a non-profit group in South Holland who provide workshops and equipment (5 lathes of various sizes) for individuals to do amazing woodturning projects from bowls to baseball bats.

Find Funding For Your Business

Alternative Funding Sources

¨ Learn about SEEDChicago, a curated Kickstarter site offering coaching

¨ Learn about AccionChicago’s funding programs to fit your business

Even if a bank has turned you down, there are reasonable alternatives to get your business going. AccionChicago ‘s Olivia Riedel will discuss their crowdfunding program that includes curating your campaign and providing coaching to make it successful. She will also provide information on Accion’s other business finance programs providing up to $100,000.

DATE: Tuesday, June 13, 2017

TIME: 6:00pm to 6:30pm: Tour Prairie State College’s MakerLab and Manufacturing labs available to help you prototype